Haggard sets Robinson stop

Correction: A story in Tuesday’s Style section should have included an information box for tonight’s Merle Haggard concert. The concert is 7 p.m. today, Robinson Center Music Hall, Broadway and West Markham, Little Rock. Tickets are $77.50, $61 and $50.50. Call (800) 745-3000 or visit ticketmaster.com.

There aren’t many legends left in country music, but Merle Haggard is surely one of them. Fortunately for those in central Arkansas who value Haggard’s place in American culture, California’s contribution to country ambles into town every few years to share some of his music with those who care.

Haggard could just as easily, one suspects, spend all of his time and energies going out on the casino circuit full time, or even sinking down roots in a Branson theater. Thankfully, Haggard is busy doing neither. “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am” he sings, and well he should.

In another one of his memorable songs, “White Line Fever,” he sings, not of cocaine, as naive yuppies once thought, but about how the passage of time looks to one who makes his living on the road:“The years keep flying by like high-line poles.”

Haggard, who will turn 77 on Sunday, reports he’s feeling fine these days, having survived a bout with lung cancer in 2008.

“I’m all right, especially for someone my age,” he cackles from somewhere out on the road, as the high-line poles fly by. “My wife tells me I was yodeling in the recovery room. I’m doing the best I can. If it gets to be too much trouble, I’ll quit doing it. Every morning, I get up and vow to write the song, ‘Stardust,’ and then I remember that Hoagy Carmichael already beat me to it.”

“The Hag” and his band, The Strangers, are on a tour that’s taking them to a variety of venues, including Little Rock’s Robinson Center Music Hall on Wednesday, plus casinos, a zoo, county fairs, arts centers, colleges, amphitheaters and even a Norse Fest in North Dakota.

“We do a variety of places, for sure,” Haggard says. “We like to cover all the bases. We don’t do the same set every night, either. My lovely wife, Theresa, is in the band, singing, and our son, Ben, is playing lead guitar in the band. He’s the best I could find and he’s starting to own these songs, too. He sings ‘Mama Tried’ and ‘Sing Me Back Home’ on a new tribute album that’s about to come out.”

The album - the third “tribute” album devoted to Haggard’s music - is Working Man’s Poet: A Tribute to Merle Haggard, releases today. It features the younger Haggard, plus Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Garth Brooks, Luke Bryan, Kristy Lee Cook, Randy Houser, Toby Keith,Dustin Lynch, Jake Owen, Parmalee, Thompson Square, James Wesley and Arkansas native Joe Nichols.

“It’s all about the music,” Haggard says, “and it’s about taking it to another generation. I’m certainly thankful for the blessing that they’ve all done my songs.”

There are many impressive things that make up Haggard’s resume. Many artists have released multiple albums, but Haggard’s are enumerated in categories: 1960s (10), 1970s (16), 1980s (11), 1990s (three), 2000s (seven) 2010s (two), collaborations (13), gospel (four), Christmas (three), live (eight) and compilations (23).

As for No. 1 singles, he has had 41 since 1966, as well as more than 100 in the top 100 - 60 of those in the top three. He still sings his eighth No. 1, “Okie From Muskogee,” and did so at this year’s Grammy Awards, accompanied by Willie Nelson, Blake Shelton and Kris Kristofferson.

“There are about 18 to 20 of my songs that people pay to hear,” he says, “and I don’t think of it as ‘I’ve got to sing ’em,’ but as ‘I get to sing ’em!”

But there’s always new music on the Haggard horizon. He reports a new bluegrass collaboration with Mac Wiseman is imminent, plus other projects at a new studio at his home near Shasta Lake in Northern California, including a tribute to Bob Dylan. Another forthcoming album will be called Karma’s Coming, which will probably be guitar duets with son Ben.

Meanwhile, Haggard wants it known that financier Warren Buffett has stepped in to help the campaign, “Save Hag’s Boxcar,” the converted boxcar where Haggard spent his early years in Oildale, Calif., after being born in nearby Bakersfield. “He owns the Santa Fe railroad, and they’ve offered to fix it up and move it 150 feet to a local museum.”

It’s a similar effort to that going on to restore the Arkansas home occupied by Johnny Cash’s family in Dyess, and that’s something Haggard has heard about.

“I talked to Rosanne [Cash] about that, and I’m hoping they’ll put us on the bill,” Haggard says, referring to the annual Johnny Cash Festival held in Jonesboro by Arkansas State University.

Back to the Little Rock show, Haggard says he is hoping he will run into a trio of old friends Wednesday night.

“Jim Ed, Bonnie and Maxine Brown always come to my shows there, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again,” he says of the brother and two sisters from Sparkman who famously recorded as The Browns in the 1950 and ’60s.